Name: Staff Favorite Moments: Producer Robert "Morty" Morton | Letterman
Uploaded: 2024-01-30T15:59:57.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Staff Favorite Moments: Producer Robert "Morty" Morton | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-01-30. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Staff Favorite Moments: Producer Robert "Morty" Morton | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-01-30. Transcript available.

I'm Robert Morton. I was with Dave for 14 years. I started before we went on
the air at the end of
1981. I was hired as a segment producer, then I became the producer of the show,
and then I became
the executive producer of the show when we went to CBS. It was the best 14
years of my life. My
favorite guest of all time was probably K-Mar. Every time he came on our show,
something would
go wrong. K-Mar always had great fuck ups. Always. Salad through salad. All
right. Did you feel it? Did you feel it?
One, two, three.
Did I get you? It got stuck. We got to do it again.
One, two, three. Buddy! Buddy!
Buddy! Buddy! Okay. Okay. Okay. Get me out. Looks like the cover of The Post,
doesn't it?
There was an FCC ruling, if I'm not mistaken, that you couldn't have hypnotists
on a show.
They were afraid that the people in the audience would get hypnotized and do
stupid things,
so we challenged it once. And we had this guy named Marshall Silver. And
Marshall Silver was this
mentalist slash hypnotist. And Marshall Silver warned me, tell Dave that if he
looks me in the eye,
he could get hypnotized on the spot.
David, okay. Let it go. Relax. Deeper and deeper. Let it go. Let your eyelids
remain closed. Keep your head down. Continue to relax.
Marshall Silver had one line. He'd suspend somebody and he would say to them,
stiff and rigid, stiff and rigid, stiff and rigid like a steel bar. And we'd
just around the office, we'd go,
stiff and rigid, rigid and stiff like a steel bar.
Tip your head straight back. Clasp those hands together. Stiff and rigid. Stiff
and rigid. Stiff and rigid as a steel bar.
There was a commercial that aired, and it was this old woman who said, "Where's
the beef?" The writers had this idea to come up with we were going to choose
our own catchphrase. They chose me to deliver one of the catchphrases. And I
had these two twin boys,
"So boys, how was school today?" "They pelted us with rocks and garbage."
Okay. Then that became the famous catchphrase. And I got many appearances with
these boys and got paid for those appearances. Bill Wendell, God rest his soul,
was our writer.
And I got many appearances with these boys and got paid for those appearances.
Bill Wendell, God rest his soul.
Bill Wendell, God rest his soul, was our announcer for many years. Bill also
had a little flatulence problem. The greatest announcer, he was a lovely guy,
but ate the wrong things for lunch. In the middle of the show, we'd hear Bill
let one out. The gas would waft our way and we'd all start laughing. During the
commercial break, I said, "You know, Wendell, let one out."
That became the famous catchphrase and I got many appearances with these boys
and got paid for those appearances. Bill Wendell, God rest his soul, was our
announcer for many years. Bill also had a little flatulence problem. The
greatest announcer, he was a lovely guy, but ate the wrong things for lunch. In
the middle of the show, we'd hear Bill let one out. The gas would waft our way
and we'd all start laughing. During the commercial break, I said, "You know, Wendell,
let one out."
Bill was farting and we don't know what to do and we're just laughing. We're
just reacting and he's doing it in front of the audience, for God's sake. So at
that point, Letterman was in on the joke.
What? Huh? What is it? A gas leak here in the studio? Is everything all right
behind camera two? Is everything all right? We have a man in the middle of a
fit of some kind.
Bill Wendell: What's going on? What is the conversation here? Everything all
right? Is this the old poison gas leak drill again?
Bill Wendell: No, I don't know. And the number one highlight of our upcoming
season finale, Gas Leak Kills Audience. There you go.
Bill Wendell: The fourth anniversary show, NBC was giving us a tremendous
budget. So Dave said, "Let's do a show on an airplane and shoot it in the three
hours that it takes to get from New York to, let's say, Miami Beach."
Bill Wendell: We shot a show on a TWA 747. We touched down. We had finished taping
the show. And we just had a week in Miami to screw around.
Bill Wendell: Advice to future producers, that's the way to do TV.
You know, when you need a flight attendant, here's a surefire way to get their
attention. Simply attach this lower torso dummy to the inside of your window,
so that it appears desperately wedged in the sub-zero upper atmosphere.
Bill Wendell: Here's how it works. Excuse me. Excuse me. If you don't mind if I
just...
Bill Wendell: There you go. See? Yeah, that works. Now, a flight attendant is
sure to rush to your seat and you can all share in a really good laugh.
Bill Wendell: So the staff always was prepared to be called into duty if a
guest canceled. And they'd sit at the desk and Dave would interview them. I had
broken up with a woman that I had dated for five years.
Bill Wendell: And I had a roll of film that I had developed. And it turned out
to be all pictures of her on a vacation. And Dave was just teasing me the whole
time.
Bill Wendell: Here's Christine on the porch wearing a bikini.
Bill Wendell: What is Christine doing now? Have you seen her recently?
Bill Wendell: She's a married woman. Bill Wendell: Oh, she's married? Do you
know the guy she married?
Bill Wendell: No, I know of him. I don't know of him. You know what he does for
a living?
Bill Wendell: Family business. Bill Wendell: Family business. Okay.
Bill Wendell: Nice guy? Bill Wendell: I've never met him. I hear good things
about him. Here's Christine and a private keep off sign. It was a little joke
at the time.
Bill Wendell: Well, this certainly has new meaning for you, doesn't it?
Bill Wendell: Over the years, we developed a reputation for breaking the
cutting edge stand-up comedians. And there are two people that I remember. The
first one was Jeff Ross. Jeff came on and just radiated happiness. It was just
the sheer enjoyment that you saw the performer getting that made it very
memorable to me.
Bill Wendell: This is one that my dad wrote for my mom. It's called "Enough
with the Bread Already."
Bill Wendell: Your smile blooms like a bright summer flower. Your hair flows
down like a soft rain shower. Your eyes are like open seas blue from coast to
coast. So how come your ass looks like a truck?
Bill Wendell: Enough with the bread already.
Bill Wendell: The other stand-up that was memorable was when Chappelle made his
network television show.
Bill Wendell: And we had decided at CBS that we were going to dress nicely. So
Chappelle shows up in torn jeans and some ratty old T-shirt. And I said to him,
I said, "Is that what you're going to wear?" And he goes, "Yeah." I was wearing
a four-button Giorgio Armani sport coat. And I said to Chappelle, "Wear my
jacket." He put the jacket on and it swam on him. He looks like David Byrne in
"Talking Heads" with the big jacket.
Bill Wendell: Terrorists has never taken a black hostage in the history of the
world.
Bill Wendell: You will never see a black guy on the news reading one of those
letters.
Bill Wendell: They is treating us good. Never.
Bill Wendell: It's true.
Bill Wendell: You know why they don't take black hostages?
Bill Wendell: Why?
Bill Wendell: Because we're bad bargaining chips.
Bill Wendell: They would call up the White House, "Hello! We have got five
black people!" And we were, "Hello?"
Bill Wendell: There was a tradition in old talk shows where people would do
walk-ons. Danny Thomas was a performer who was famous for doing spit takes.
Danny did a walk-on. Of course, we wanted him to do a spit take, which he did.
Bill Wendell: Years later, when Danny Thomas passed away, I found it
particularly funny that I made it to the obituary based on the walk-on. And I
said something about it. He was a genius. His timing. I don't remember what it
was.
Bill Wendell: Anyway, it's great to be on your show.
Bill Wendell: Thank you very much.
Bill Wendell: Is that your nose or are you eating a banana?
Bill Wendell: I had a friendship with Barbara Streisand, of all people. And I
convinced her to do a walk-on on the show. If you remember both of our shows,
Bill Wendell: Dave sat to the left of the guests. It favored the guests' right
side. Barbara always favored her left side.
Bill Wendell: So when she did the walk-on, she insisted on coming in from stage
left instead of stage right, where all the guests always came in from.
Bill Wendell: I was able to get tickets to the seventh game of the Stanley Cup
playoffs with the Rangers and the Canucks.
Bill Wendell: Thank you. Bill Wendell: But yet, I can't get Streisand tickets.
I can get World Series tickets.
Bill Wendell: Imagine that. Bill Wendell: I can go anywhere in this country and
buy tickets to the New York Knicks place.
Bill Wendell: I just wanted to tell you to stop kvetching already. Here's it.
Now I expect it to come.
Bill Wendell: You got anything down front? Ah, come on!
Bill Wendell: My favorite all-time piece on the show, the writers came up with
a character called P-Boy. It was one of these pieces that was so dumb, but P-Boy,
for some reason, just struck me as hilarious.
Bill Wendell: P-Boy, can't you see, boy, all the great moves that you spread?
Everyone waits, so don't hesitate. We love it when you aim right at our head.
Bill Wendell: P-Boy, can't you see, boy, all the great moves that you spread?
Everyone waits, so don't hesitate. We love it when you aim right at our head.
Bill Wendell: I was the extrovert on the staff. I always looked at it as my
role to kind of be the ambassador in New York for the show.
Bill Wendell: Dave made fun of me for eating at Orso every night. I used to see
a lot of people, and in my ambassadorial role, I would say,
"Hey, come do the show while you're in town." I used to go out quite a lot, and
stay out quite late, and have a lot of fun.
Bill Wendell: This time I wanted to mention another element that is very
special on the show, and that is your producer, Robert Morton.
Robert Morton: Robert Morton.
Bill Wendell: Can you imagine what it's like to produce this show? This man
lives in a whirlwind of decision-making and problem-solving.
Bill Wendell: I mean, who's the guy, when Cher cancels, who's the guy who calls
the insect lady in the middle of the night and says, "Can you come in?" and schmoozes
with guest after guest at Orso's.
Bill Wendell: And then he has to decide, "Oh, was it the pasta pomodoro or the
Greenpoint Mussels or the Chablis or the Zinfandel or the, you know, the creme
brulee or the Tofuti?"
Bill Wendell: This is the man who does it, and I- Bill Wendell: The only man
producing television today with a prison haircut, and I say that because-
Bill Wendell: Indulge my insatiable ego for one minute. I want to talk about
some of the appearances that I made on the show.
Bill Wendell: When I started as the producer of the show, Dave came to me and
said, "Morty, it gets very lonely out there, so I need somebody to just help me
out so that I'm not alone out there."
Bill Wendell: He said, "Do you mind if I often come to you on the air?" And I
said, "No, of course not."
Bill Wendell: So as a result, he used to come to me a lot, and then it kind of
went into where he would make fun of me, and it helped his performance, and it
made the show that much better.
Bill Wendell: You know, our new producer thinks he's Elvis. I think- I wish I'd
known that a couple of weeks ago. Now what do we do?
Bill Wendell: Now you cross back. Bill Wendell: Who are you, by the way?
Bill Wendell: Our producer over there, Johnny Cash. Always nice to have Johnny
with us. He used to be a hairdresser.
Bill Wendell: He worked with Jose Ibert, and he worked with John Peters, and
now he's producing this show.
Bill Wendell: Art Carney, ladies and gentlemen. Don Diego again.
Bill Wendell: Ah. Bill Wendell: The man who invented the stand-up nap.
Bill Wendell: All right, Morty!
Bill Wendell: That's all right, Morty, come out and pick this up.
Bill Wendell: It's the producer. Look, Paul. It's the producer.
Bill Wendell: It's the producer.
Bill Wendell: After a show, Dave was upset because his tie was all crumpled up.
And he said to me, he says, "Morty, you're right in front of me. If you see
that my tie is not lined up with my belt buckle, wherever we are, stop the show."
Bill Wendell: God bless you, Bob. Thank you very much.
Bill Wendell: Another time he brought me up on stage, he asked me to hug him. I
not only hugged him, but I grabbed his ass.
Bill Wendell: Nobody grabbed David Letterman's ass unless you were Julia
Roberts or whoever. I don't know.
Bill Wendell: All right, Bob. Come on up here. How about a hug?
Bill Wendell: Bob favoring the old grab and thrust technique.
Bill Wendell: I haven't seen that since my army days.
Bill Wendell: Another time we had Jean-Claude Van Damme on the show and Van Damme
was going to demonstrate how close he could get to Letterman's face by kicking
him.
Bill Wendell: So Letterman said, "Morty, come up here."
Bill Wendell: I always enjoyed it. It was always fun and it happened a lot.
Bill Wendell: Thank you, sir. Get your own show.
Bill Wendell: Unbelievable.
Bill Wendell: Jean-Claude Van Damme.
Bill Wendell: Whenever a joke would fail, also I would be called on stage and
was often the one that had to take responsibility.
Bill Wendell: And one night there was a top ten vending machine backstage, but
it did not work.
Bill Wendell: Okay, let's try that one. Okay, let's try that one. Okay, let's
try that one. Okay, let's try that one. All right, let's just turn the son of a
bitch over.
Bill Wendell: Ladies and gentlemen, this is my good friend. I've known Bob. How
long have I known you, Bob?
Bill Wendell: Thirteen years, Dave.
Bill Wendell: Bob is the producer of the program, and Bob, being the producer,
that makes you responsible for every last little lousy detail. Is that right?
Bill Wendell: Yes, it does, Dave.
Bill Wendell: Nice going, Bob. Thank you very much. Bob Morton, ladies and
gentlemen.
Bob Morton: When Madonna came on and every other word out of her mouth was a
profanity, I was torn.
Bill Wendell: On one hand, I knew that it would get tremendous publicity, but
on the other hand, I knew that Dave would be pissed off.
Bill Wendell: Dave was told that I told Madonna that she could say whatever she
wants, and if she wants to talk dirty, she could talk dirty.
Bill Wendell: And I never told her that. I think somebody else might have.
Bill Wendell: It turned out to be one of the most famous moments of the show,
so all's well that ends well.
Bill Wendell: Why are you always -- actually, I brought something to, like,
make a point.
Bill Wendell: All right, okay. Good.
Bill Wendell: Because you are always me on the show.
Bill Wendell: You are always me on the show.
Bill Wendell: This --
Bill Wendell: You are always me on the show.
Bill Wendell: You are always me on the show.
Bill Wendell: Where is that thing?
Bill Wendell: See what you're doing?
Bill Wendell: See? Do you see what you're doing?
Bill Wendell: Drew Barrymore came on the show on Dave's birthday.
Bill Wendell: Daniel Kellison, great, great producer.
Bill Wendell: Drew mentioned to Daniel that she had a surprise that she wanted
to pull on Dave.
Bill Wendell: Daniel came to me and said, "Look, this is what Drew wants to do.
Bill Wendell: Should I tell Dave she wants to surprise him?"
Bill Wendell: Now, we all knew that Dave did not like surprises.
Bill Wendell: So I said, "You know, Daniel, you're a big boy.
Bill Wendell: It's in your hands, pal.
Bill Wendell: Whatever you think."
Bill Wendell: And I was just washing my hands and the whole thing and I just
threw it right
Bill Wendell: back at Daniel.
Bill Wendell: And I don't think he told Dave.
Bill Wendell: Okay, okay.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: One of my favorite pieces that I was part of was A Day in the
Life of Morty.
Bill Wendell: It wasn't the funniest piece.
Bill Wendell: So the writers came up with a device where I promised that if a
piece failed,
Bill Wendell: I would jump into a tub of chocolate pudding.
Bill Wendell: And if you listen carefully, Dave says to me as he gets into the
chocolate pudding,
Bill Wendell: It's like a weekend at your house.
Bill Wendell: Oh ho ho.
Bill Wendell: There we go.
Bill Wendell: Be careful.
Bill Wendell: Oh.
Bill Wendell: Oh.
Bill Wendell: Oh.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.
Bill Wendell: Oh my God.

Staff Favorite Moments: Producer Robert "Morty" Morton | Letterman

I'm Robert Morton. I was with Dave for 14 years. I started before we went on
the air at the end of
1981. I was hired as a segment producer, then I became the producer of the show,
and then I became
the executive producer of the show when we went to CBS. It was the best 14
years of my life. My
favorite guest of all time was probably K-Mar. Every time he came on our show,
something would
go wrong. K-Mar always had great fuck ups. Always. Salad through salad. All
right. Did you feel it? Did you feel it?
One, two, three.
Did I get you? It got stuck. We got to do it again.
One, two, three. Buddy! Buddy!
Buddy! Buddy! Okay. Okay. Okay. Get me out. Looks like the cover of The Post,
doesn't it?
There was an FCC ruling, if I'm not mistaken, that you couldn't have hypnotists
on a show.
They were afraid that the people in the audience would get hypnotized and do
stupid things,
so we challenged it once. And we had this guy named Marshall Silver. And
Marshall Silver was this
mentalist slash hypnotist. And Marshall Silver warned me, tell Dave that if he
looks me in the eye,
he could get hypnotized on the spot.
David, okay. Let it go. Relax. Deeper and deeper. Let it go. Let your eyelids
remain closed. Keep your head down. Continue to relax.
Marshall Silver had one line. He'd suspend somebody and he would say to them,
stiff and rigid, stiff and rigid, stiff and rigid like a steel bar. And we'd
just around the office, we'd go,
stiff and rigid, rigid and stiff like a steel bar.
Tip your head straight back. Clasp those hands together. Stiff and rigid. Stiff
and rigid. Stiff and rigid as a steel bar.
There was a commercial that aired, and it was this old woman who said, "Where's
the beef?" The writers had this idea to come up with we were going to choose
our own catchphrase. They chose me to deliver one of the catchphrases. And I
had these two twin boys,
"So boys, how was school today?" "They pelted us with rocks and garbage."
Okay. Then that became the famous catchphrase. And I got many appearances with
these boys and got paid for those appearances. Bill Wendell, God rest his soul,
was our writer.
And I got many appearances with these boys and got paid for those appearances.
Bill Wendell, God rest his soul.
Bill Wendell, God rest his soul, was our announcer for many years. Bill also
had a little flatulence problem. The greatest announcer, he was a lovely guy,
but ate the wrong things for lunch. In the middle of the show, we'd hear Bill
let one out. The gas would waft our way and we'd all start laughing. During the
commercial break, I said, "You know, Wendell, let one out."
That became the famous catchphrase and I got many appearances with these boys
and got paid for those appearances. Bill Wendell, God rest his soul, was our
announcer for many years. Bill also had a little flatulence problem. The
greatest announcer, he was a lovely guy, but ate the wrong things for lunch. In
the middle of the show, we'd hear Bill let one out. The gas would waft our way
and we'd all start laughing. During the commercial break, I said, "You know, Wendell,
let one out."
Bill was farting and we don't know what to do and we're just laughing. We're
just reacting and he's doing it in front of the audience, for God's sake. So at
that point, Letterman was in on the joke.
What? Huh? What is it? A gas leak here in the studio? Is everything all right
behind camera two? Is everything all right? We have a man in the middle of a
fit of some kind.
Bill Wendell: What's going on? What is the conversation here? Everything all
right? Is this the old poison gas leak drill again?
Bill Wendell: No, I don't know. And the number one highlight of our upcoming
season finale, Gas Leak Kills Audience. There you go.
Bill Wendell: The fourth anniversary show, NBC was giving us a tremendous
budget. So Dave said, "Let's do a show on an airplane and shoot it in the three
hours that it takes to get from New York to, let's say, Miami Beach."
Bill Wendell: We shot a show on a TWA 747. We touched down. We had finished taping
the show. And we just had a week in Miami to screw around.
Bill Wendell: Advice to future producers, that's the way to do TV.
You know, when you need a flight attendant, here's a surefire way to get their
attention. Simply attach this lower torso dummy to the inside of your window,
so that it appears desperately wedged in the sub-zero upper atmosphere.
Bill Wendell: Here's how it works. Excuse me. Excuse me. If you don't mind if I
just...
Bill Wendell: There you go. See? Yeah, that works. Now, a flight attendant is
sure to rush to your seat and you can all share in a really good laugh.
Bill Wendell: So the staff always was prepared to be called into duty if a
guest canceled. And they'd sit at the desk and Dave would interview them. I had
broken up with a woman that I had dated for five years.
Bill Wendell: And I had a roll of film that I had developed. And it turned out
to be all pictures of her on a vacation. And Dave was just teasing me the whole
time.
Bill Wendell: Here's Christine on the porch wearing a bikini.
Bill Wendell: What is Christine doing now? Have you seen her recently?
Bill Wendell: She's a married woman. Bill Wendell: Oh, she's married? Do you
know the guy she married?
Bill Wendell: No, I know of him. I don't know of him. You know what he does for
a living?
Bill Wendell: Family business. Bill Wendell: Family business. Okay.
Bill Wendell: Nice guy? Bill Wendell: I've never met him. I hear good things
about him. Here's Christine and a private keep off sign. It was a little joke
at the time.
Bill Wendell: Well, this certainly has new meaning for you, doesn't it?
Bill Wendell: Over the years, we developed a reputation for breaking the
cutting edge stand-up comedians. And there are two people that I remember. The
first one was Jeff Ross. Jeff came on and just radiated happiness. It was just
the sheer enjoyment that you saw the performer getting that made it very
memorable to me.
Bill Wendell: This is one that my dad wrote for my mom. It's called "Enough
with the Bread Already."
Bill Wendell: Your smile blooms like a bright summer flower. Your hair flows
down like a soft rain shower. Your eyes are like open seas blue from coast to
coast. So how come your ass looks like a truck?
Bill Wendell: Enough with the bread already.
Bill Wendell: The other stand-up that was memorable was when Chappelle made his
network television show.
Bill Wendell: And we had decided at CBS that we were going to dress nicely. So
Chappelle shows up in torn jeans and some ratty old T-shirt. And I said to him,
I said, "Is that what you're going to wear?" And he goes, "Yeah." I was wearing
a four-button Giorgio Armani sport coat. And I said to Chappelle, "Wear my
jacket." He put the jacket on and it swam on him. He looks like David Byrne in
"Talking Heads" with the big jacket.
Bill Wendell: Terrorists has never taken a black hostage in the history of the
world.
Bill Wendell: You will never see a black guy on the news reading one of those
letters.
Bill Wendell: They is treating us good. Never.
Bill Wendell: It's true.
Bill Wendell: You know why they don't take black hostages?
Bill Wendell: Why?
Bill Wendell: Because we're bad bargaining chips.
Bill Wendell: They would call up the White House, "Hello! We have got five
black people!" And we were, "Hello?"
Bill Wendell: There was a tradition in old talk shows where people would do
walk-ons. Danny Thomas was a performer who was famous for doing spit takes.
Danny did a walk-on. Of course, we wanted him to do a spit take, which he did.
Bill Wendell: Years later, when Danny Thomas passed away, I found it
particularly funny that I made it to the obituary based on the walk-on. And I
said something about it. He was a genius. His timing. I don't remember what it
was.
Bill Wendell: Anyway, it's great to be on your show.
Bill Wendell: Thank you very much.
Bill Wendell: Is that your nose or are you eating a banana?
Bill Wendell: I had a friendship with Barbara Streisand, of all people. And I
convinced her to do a walk-on on the show. If you remember both of our shows,
Bill Wendell: Dave sat to the left of the guests. It favored the guests' right
side. Barbara always favored her left side.
Bill Wendell: So when she did the walk-on, she insisted on coming in from stage
left instead of stage right, where all the guests always came in from.
Bill Wendell: I was able to get tickets to the seventh game of the Stanley Cup
playoffs with the Rangers and the Canucks.
Bill Wendell: Thank you. Bill Wendell: But yet, I can't get Streisand tickets.
I can get World Series tickets.
Bill Wendell: Imagine that. Bill Wendell: I can go anywhere in this country and
buy tickets to the New York Knicks place.
Bill Wendell: I just wanted to tell you to stop kvetching already. Here's it.
Now I expect it to come.
Bill Wendell: You got anything down front? Ah, come on!
Bill Wendell: My favorite all-time piece on the show, the writers came up with
a character called P-Boy. It was one of these pieces that was so dumb, but P-Boy,
for some reason, just struck me as hilarious.
Bill Wendell: P-Boy, can't you see, boy, all the great moves that you spread?
Everyone waits, so don't hesitate. We love it when you aim right at our head.
Bill Wendell: P-Boy, can't you see, boy, all the great moves that you spread?
Everyone waits, so don't hesitate. We love it when you aim right at our head.
Bill Wendell: I was the extrovert on the staff. I always looked at it as my
role to kind of be the ambassador in New York for the show.
Bill Wendell: Dave made fun of me for eating at Orso every night. I used to see
a lot of people, and in my ambassadorial role, I would say,
"Hey, come do the show while you're in town." I used to go out quite a lot, and
stay out quite late, and have a lot of fun.
Bill Wendell: This time I wanted to mention another element that is very
special on the show, and that is your producer, Robert Morton.
Robert Morton: Robert Morton.
Bill Wendell: Can you imagine what it's like to produce this show? This man
lives in a whirlwind of decision-making and problem-solving.
Bill Wendell: I mean, who's the guy, when Cher cancels, who's the guy who calls
the insect lady in the middle of the night and says, "Can you come in?" and schmoozes
with guest after guest at Orso's.
Bill Wendell: And then he has to decide, "Oh, was it the pasta pomodoro or the
Greenpoint Mussels or the Chablis or the Zinfandel or the, you know, the creme
brulee or the Tofuti?"
Bill Wendell: This is the man who does it, and I- Bill Wendell: The only man
producing television today with a prison haircut, and I say that because-
Bill Wendell: Indulge my insatiable ego for one minute. I want to talk about
some of the appearances that I made on the show.
Bill Wendell: When I started as the producer of the show, Dave came to me and
said, "Morty, it gets very lonely out there, so I need somebody to just help me
out so that I'm not alone out there."
Bill Wendell: He said, "Do you mind if I often come to you on the air?" And I
said, "No, of course not."
Bill Wendell: So as a result, he used to come to me a lot, and then it kind of
went into where he would make fun of me, and it helped his performance, and it
made the show that much better.
Bill Wendell: You know, our new producer thinks he's Elvis. I think- I wish I'd
known that a couple of weeks ago. Now what do we do?
Bill Wendell: Now you cross back. Bill Wendell: Who are you, by the way?
Bill Wendell: Our producer over there, Johnny Cash. Always nice to have Johnny
with us. He used to be a hairdresser.
Bill Wendell: He worked with Jose Ibert, and he worked with John Peters, and
now he's producing this show.
Bill Wendell: Art Carney, ladies and gentlemen. Don Diego again.
Bill Wendell: Ah. Bill Wendell: The man who invented the stand-up nap.
Bill Wendell: All right, Morty!
Bill Wendell: That's all right, Morty, come out and pick this up.
Bill Wendell: It's the producer. Look, Paul. It's the producer.
Bill Wendell: It's the pro